Kansas snags commitments from state’s top football prospects

Late last week, Rivals.com released its state-by-state rankings for the top prospects in the Class of 2013, and the Kansas University football team appears to be doing quite well in the Sunflower State.

According to the rankings, KU has secured oral commitments from the fourth, fifth and sixth best players in the state.

Basehor-Linwood’s Ben Johnson is ranked fourth and was given three stars. The 6-foot-5, 230-pound tight end was the first in the Class of 2013 to commit to KU. Last season he caught 59 passes for 954 yards and 12 touchdowns.

Bishop Miege quarterback Montell Cozart, 6-2, 180, ranks fifth and also is a three-star prospect. Cozart, who played for new KU offensive line coach Tim Grunhard last season, led the Stags to a 9-2 record and the second round of the postseason.

Shawnee Mission East quarterback Jordan Darling, 6-4, 226, is the most recent KU commitment and ranks sixth on the list. Darling, a three-star QB, played at Waco Midway High as a junior and led his squad to a berth in the state title game.

Missouri (offensive lineman Clay Rhodes, ranked second) and Kansas State (linebacker Tanner Wood, ranked third) each have one commitment from the list and the other five remain undecided.

According to Rivals, Morrow is the only player remaining on the list to whom KU has offered a scholarship.

In all, the Jayhawks have received five commitments from this class, three from Kansas, one from Missouri and one from Texas.

St. Louis-area linebacker Kellen Ash, 6-3, 194, is ranked as the ninth best prospect in Missouri, while Dallas area defensive back Colin Spencer did not crack Rivals.com’s Top 100 in Texas.

Habitat for Humanity

Several KU employees and student-athletes offered their services to the Habitat for Humanity project in Lawrence on Wednesday.

Included among them were defensive tackle Keon Stowers, a junior who transferred from Georgia Military College and arrived on campus earlier this month, and tight end Justin Puthoff, a junior from Goddard. Both KU football players tweeted about their experience and, not surprisingly, touted “hard work” as a key ingredient to the project’s success.

Facilities fail?

On Thursday, ESPN.com’s David Ubben unveiled his rankings for the top football facilities in the Big 12 Conference.

Even though Ubben noted that he took into account more than just each school’s stadium, he ranked the Jayhawks dead last and seemed to penalize them for the state of Memorial Stadium.

Here’s Ubben’s take: “Want a good way to say — intended or not — that “We don’t care enough about football?” Put a track around your football field. Kansas’ facilities are nice, and like I said above, it’s not all that far behind No. 4 Texas Tech, but the stadium is holding KU back.”

Summer camping

This weekend was big for the KU football camp circuit. After hosting the annual Friday Night Lights camp from 5-9 p.m. on Friday, KU’s coaching staff welcomed some of the top athletes from around the region for 7-on-7 and Offensive and Defensive line camps from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday.

Both camps featured some of the top talent from all levels of high school football and each gave the KU coaching staff a close-up look at some of the players they may wind up recruiting during the next couple of years. This year’s camps were closed to the media and will wrap up with an individual camp on June 27 and a Super Tuesday camp July 31.

He didn't mention the football facilities outside of the stadium which are ranked in the top 10. And why do we need another stadium or expand when we can't fill what we have? Hopefullly Coach Weis will change that.